2018 Semifinalists & Track Winners
Business Products & Services
Facilikey (1st place in BtoB track)
Facilikey is an app for property managers to organize maintenance requests and connect them with the right vendors for the job.
Ross Krasner, Medill ’18
RideLink (2nd place in BtoB track)
RideLink provides amusement park operators with a predictive machine learning platform to make smarter maintenance decisions and reduce annual unplanned maintenance costs.
Eric Forbes, Kellogg ‘19
CoCo Health
CoCo Health provides on-site mental wellness support for employers and employees by bringing counselors and providers to the workplace.
Jonathan Bateman, Kellogg ’19
Hilltop Health
Business solutions for vets to create tech enabled, world class pet care.
Chase Michalek, Kellogg ’18
Queralyze, LLC
Queralyze is a cost effective teaching enhancement tool focusing on critical thinking and writing.
Jonathan Goldberg, Weinberg ’20
Consumer Products & Services
Cariset (1st place in BtoC track)
Because the key to feeling like you’re on top of the world starts with your bag.
Allison Brown, Kellogg ’18
Unruled. (2nd place in BtoC track)
Unruled. is empowering visual thinkers through environmentally responsible design.
Jacob Morgan, McCormick ‘18
Commit
Commit is a platform that creates and guarantees demand for events and trips to make sure they’re full…or don’t happen.
Mia Velasquez, Kellogg ’19
LOUD Enterprises LLC
LOUD’s mission is to use artwork and apparel to inspire, challenge and enable others to pursue their passions and to live out their dreams.
Jeremy Greenberger, Medill ‘18
SkimmyLabs
Skimmy is a wearable device that alerts credit card holders to detected skimmers.
Peter Li, Weinberg ’20
Energy & Sustainability
NUMiX Materials (1st place in Energy & Sustainability track)
NUMiX Materials manufactures and supplies Northwestern University-patented materials to remove heavy metals from aqueous streams at ten times the efficiency of competing materials on a per-volume basis.
Laurelle Banta, Pritzker School of Law ’17
PedalCell (2nd place in Energy & Sustainability track)
PedalCell creates novel bike-powered phone chargers for the bike share industry.
Vishaal Mali, McCormick ’20
Instago
Instago is a community centric carpooling app that matches people going in the same direction at similar times and thereby allows them to split the cost of the ride while reducing emissions.
Nakul Khanna, Kellogg ’18
Walla
Walla helps utilities meet state-mandated energy savings targets by incentivizing consumers to reduce their individual electricity demands through micro-investing and cloud-based smart appliance automation.
Ganesh Acharya, Kellogg ’18
Food & Beverage
BrewBike (1st place in Food & Beverage track)
BrewBike fuels college students with cold brew coffee.
Lucas Philips, SESP ’19
reBLEND (2nd place in Food & Beverage track)
reBLEND sources misshapen produce and crafts delicious smoothies that help customers better win their day.
Kathryn Bernell, Kellogg ’18
2nd Kitchen
2ndKitchen is a platform that enables bars without kitchens to serve food seamlessly using a network of popular restaurants around them.
Nick Anastasiades, Kellogg ’18
HotPlate
HotPlate is an app that enables diners to discover the best dishes at restaurants through individual dish ratings and reviews.
Sarah Ahmad, McCormick ’18
Jora Beverage Company
Mindful mixers, conscious crafters, and innovative partiers who refuse to settle for alcoholic beverages that continuously fail to acknowledge our lifestyles.
Jonas Weitzman, School of Communications ’18
Life Sciences & Medical Innovations
Rhaeos (1st place in Medical track)
Rhaeos has developed a noninvasive, wearable biosensor capable of diagnosing ventricular shunt malfunction.
Amit Ayer, MD, Kellogg ‘19
BackWave Technologies (2nd place in Medical track)
BackWave is developing a noninvasive device that measures cardiac output to detect and prevent acute exacerbations of heart failure.
Andrew Cabodi, Kellogg ’18
BioTrellis, LLC
BioTrellis, LLC is an innovative pre-clinical nanomaterial product which can dramatically improve healing post surgery for cartilage repair patient.
Ashwin Narayanan, PhD Candidate, Materials Science
Jabiru Medical
Jabiru provides real-time biometric feedback for new moms to facilitate expedited labor and avoid undesirable, costly surgical interventions.
Michael Ellenberger, Pritzker School of Law ’19
Jetter
Jetter is an easy-to-use, child-friendly device that improves the pediatric injection experience.
Nish Rastogi, Kellogg ’18
Social Impact
Brave Initiatives (1st place in Social Impact track)
Brave Initiatives is on a mission to empower high school girls to be brave leaders of change in their communities using technology.
Emily Harburg, PhD Candidate, Technology + Social Behavior
Poppy (2nd place in Social Impact track)
Poppy is the first online support system designed to help communities provide long-term and meaningful help for the grievers in their lives.
Lisa Jaris, Kellogg ’18
BOSSY
BOSSY is a platform that celebrates female business owners and helps them grow their businesses by motivating female consumers to buy women-owned.
Sam Letscher, McCormick ’18
LineShift
LineShift provides solutions and tools that enable the manufacturing workforce to analyze and deploy their skills as AI and automation disrupt the industry.
Don Meier, Kellogg ’19
Sidekick Education
Students partner with organizations to solve real problems using core class content. Sidekick partners with teachers to help them pull it off.
Ashwin Halgeri, Kellogg ‘18